Olafur Eliasson issues a wake up call with Ice Watch

Ice Watch is Olaffur Eliasson's latest environmental project. In a square in Copenhagen he arranged 12 chunks of ice weighing in at 100 tons to resemble an ominous clock. The melting ice represents the amount of ice that disappears every 100th of a second due to global warming. Read more...
Image: Olafur Eliasson's Ice Watch, City Hall Square, Copenhagen

Olafur Eliasson's Little Sun at the World Economic Forum

Olafur Eliasson's is heading to the World Economic forum in Davios where he will discuss Little Sun, an inexpensive solar-powered lamp that he and his engineer partner Frederik Ottesen have designed to be widely distributed in the developing world to people with no access to an electrical grid. The lamp gives 10 times more light than using a kerosene lamp, and at a 10th of the cost.

Olafur Eliasson's sun-inspired product with a social purpose

Olafur Eliasson's latest project is a solar-powered lamp that he and his engineer partner Frederik Ottesen have designed to be widely distributed in the developing world. Called the Little Sun, the lamp will give 10 times more light than using a kerosene lamp, and at a 10th of the cost.

They have met the costs of the lamps and developed a business model through they can be distributed and sold by local retailers in Africa, initially in Kenya, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, for £6.40

The lamps will also have a life at the Tate where they will be on sale at a developed world price of £16.50. And, starting on 28 July, and for every Saturday night until 23 September, the surrealism rooms at the Tate Modern will be plunged into darkness after normal hours and visitors will view works by the light of the Little Sun lamps, echoing an act of Man Ray who supplied people with torches to illuminate artworks at the opening of the international Surrealist Exhibition of 1938.
Image: the Little Sun lamp

Olafur Eliasson's shimmering glass facade animates the new Harpa-Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre

Iceland is celebrating the opening of the Harpa-Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre, a stunning building whose shimmering glass facade was designed by Olafur Eliasson. Conceived of as a cultural hotspot, it is hoped that the building will also be a tourist draw during the long, dark winters - a fact of life that was central to the design. "In Iceland, 30% of the day is twilight. One third of people's lives are lived in this transitional zone," says Eliasson whose facade reflects the low northern light in all its variations, as though lit from within. "The relationship people in Iceland have to the landscape is like the relationship you have to a close family member. It has to do with the way light gives landscape a constantly changing personality. It speaks to you with such finesse."

Image: Iceland's new Harpa-Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre